What is a Patent

What Is a Patent?

A patent by definition is a
acknowledgement of proper rights to an inventor, for a specific
invention. They are issued by the USPTO, after rigorous
searches in the patent archives, verifying that no
infringements on existing patents are made.

Once
an invention has qualified, and is granted a patent, the
typical life span of the patent is twenty years from the
original filing date, provided the maintenance fees are paid.
There are certain cases where extensions are
granted.

The
official wording of the patent statute
is:

“the right to exclude others
from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the
invention in the United States or “importing” the invention
into the United States. What is granted is not the right to
make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to
exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling
or importing the invention.*

Note that the actual patent is not
designed to permit usage of the invention, but more of an
exclusion from allowing any entity or individual from making,
using, importing or selling the invention.

This
patent is only valid in the United States, and it's
possessions, unless foreign patents are granted as well, by
their perspective patent board or authority. Each individual
country has their own processes to follow in order to obtain a
patent protecting the invention in that
country.

Unfortunately for individual inventors
especially, the USPTO offers no enforcement in protecting their
invention. Meaning if someone were to infringe or in some way
violate the patent, the patent holder must enforce the patent
on their own.

Defending patent infringement is a very
expensive process, but necessary if you wish to maintain the
very rights granted by the patent.

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